


Every Purpose Under Heaven

by halotolerant



Category: Lewis - Fandom
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:26:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halotolerant/pseuds/halotolerant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James was not entirely sure what his Inspector’s late wife’s late mother might have made of him. But then, he was often unsure what he made of himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Purpose Under Heaven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dkwilliams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dkwilliams/gifts).



It was the kind of front door with windows in, two panes of rippled glass through which James saw the shape of his Inspector, coming in answer to the bell, which had chimed an electronic dirge of ‘Oranges and Lemons’.

“These were all they had spare, apparently,” James explained as the door opened, lifting the meagre collection of empty cardboard boxes. “They probably save them to build nests for Beelzebub.”

“Yeah, I know you’re not fond of supermarkets,” Lewis raised an eyebrow at him, the edge of a grin lifting a little of the tiredness from his eyes. “Thank you for braving the mouth of the beast.”

He looked more melancholy than when James had left him an hour earlier. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, his hair disarranged and there were streaks of dust across his trousers, but all that might have just been him happy and off-duty, tinkering with something in his garage.

It was something in his whole body, in the sag of his muscles, the way he wiped his hands on his trousers too often as they carried the boxes and the small collection of food bags into the house, something that produced an answering tension in James’ chest.

In the kitchen, which was a disturbing example of how deeply the 1970s had been enamoured with orange floral prints and the colour sage green, James quietly emptied the out of the date milk, and a few shrivelled carrots from the fridge and replaced them with a fresh two pints, three ready meals and a carton of orange juice.

There was already a neat stack of crockery on the table and Lewis had begun transferring it into one of the boxes. James walked over to his side and assisted.

“These were the...” Lewis stopped, bracing his hands on the table top. “I remember the first time Val took me here to meet her Mam and Dad, it was these plates we ate off. Never threw anything away, that generation. As you can see.” He waved at the kitchen, maybe the entire house.

“Your mother-in-law was obviously very house-proud.” James lifted another pile of plates, trying not to let them wobble and clash against each other. “If someone had to clear my house tomorrow, they wouldn’t find all the plates clean and the floor mopped.”

Some of the tension in Lewis’ shoulders ebbed.

When he had trained as a priest, James had believed that in all circumstances one should offer comfort and reassurance, that the promise of improvement - of healing - was always appropriate.

His own period of despair had shown him the rhythm of it, that to experience sadness was often the only way to pass through it.

But that did not mean you should leave a person to make that journey alone.

Straightening his back, Lewis sighed, letting out a low wry chuckle, almost certainly in self-mockery. He was not easy with his own unhappiness; James had seen that very early on. Like most optimists, he seemed to feel that depression denoted a failure of willpower.

But it was so easy to get things wrong. So easy to regret actions taken or not taken.

There was a freedom in melancholy. James had known that too long and too well. Part of him wished there was a way to explain to Lewis how simple it could be, and yet when Lewis was present the knowledge slipped away from him. When he was with Lewis, it was harder to see happiness as something unobtainable.

Determined to end his contemplations, James lifted another box onto the table and opened a cupboard which turned out to contain assorted saucepans stacked neatly in size order.

He packed them carefully in newspaper, aware that he was standing so close to Lewis that their arms almost brushed together with every other movement; it was comfortable enough to be unsettling.

The process was strangely hypnotic, wrapping and wedging and reaching out for another object, as a wall clock decorated with plastic penguins ticked away the minutes.

“Don’t you need to set off about now?”

James looked up. Lewis had stopped with the third or fourth wine glass in hand. “It’s a good four hours at least from Gateshead to Oxford on the roads, and I can’t take your whole evening away too. You’ve got that seminar tomorrow.”

He looked more like himself, James was pleased to see. And yet in being himself he was being cheerful, overly cheerful and bright and brisk, eager to help someone else.

 _He’s about the nicest man in existence_ , another DI had said to James when he’d started working with Inspector Lewis. _Used to work with a bloke called Morse. Absolute bloody pain in the arse, genius and patronising, patriarchal, you name it. Lewis loved him out of it. Seriously, he turned the other cheek every single day and he was the only one Morse actually liked. Honestly, I think he genuinely liked Morse as well, God knows why. That’s how nice he is._

Such a complicated thing, the relationship between Inspector and Sergeant. Probably seeing more of each other than the average person did a spouse, and yet within that the range for intimacy was... wide.

James put the last of a collection of ramekins in his box and concentrated on fitting it in neatly, staring at his own hands at their task. “I could go now, sir, if you want me to.”

Lewis was looking at him, James could tell, but he didn’t look back. He worried how much of his feelings might be broadcasting from his own face.

The clock carried on ticking in the silence.

Still not looking at Lewis, James picked up the full box and carried it carefully into the long hallway, placing it in a queue of objects awaiting departure to the local charity auctions. Stretching along pristine fawn carpet from the front door almost to the entrance to the living room, boxes, bags, a dressing table and an ironing board made the beginning of an end of one collected life.

Lewis had had to sort out his wife’s things like this, of course. James hadn’t really thought of that before, or not in that way.

Maybe Morse’s too.

He walked back into the kitchen. He was itching for a cigarette, or for _something_ , some craving deep in his skin he couldn’t shake. How was it possible to mourn for a life still lived, when there was more than enough death in the world?

“Fancy a cuppa?” Lewis asked. He had two mugs from another matching set out on the counter and was sniffing an enamelware container marked _TEA_. “I think it’s PG Tips, I might be wrong. There isn’t any coffee.”

“Shouldn’t I be looking after _you_ , sir?” James grinned, telegraphing a joke he wasn’t quite sure he was making.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Hathaway. Bless her, my mother-in-law was a wonderful woman and I’m sorry she’s passed, even at eighty-seven, but I don’t need hot sweet tea and a blanket.”

“No one needs sweet tea,” James pointed out, with a shudder of revulsion. He opened the fridge to retrieve the milk. “You might have told me there wasn’t coffee, I’d have bought some. I couldn’t imagine someone not keeping coffee.”

The kettle boiled, Lewis poured the water, James stirred and extracted the tea bags and Lewis added the milk, in a rhythm of four years and thousands of caffeine breaks, the kind they could work at 2 am in a hospital kitchenette, an office or a scene-of-crime base. Sometimes their silence could be better than conversation, expressing some things more completely.

 James felt aware of the picture they might make through the kitchen window, the cosy orange light, the kettle and them, leaning on the pine worktop, aware of each other.

Lewis leading the way, they carried their mugs through to the living room, where a wide maroon sofa with white velveteen cushions faced a bulky television that stood to one side of a coal-effect gas fire. A _TV Times_ lay open on a coffee table, pen put down in the act of circling programmes for the coming week; for the first time since entering the house, James felt an echo of grief.

Evidently Lewis had yet to touch this room; photographs and knick knacks on the mantelpiece created an unsettling suggestion of invasion.

Lewis sprawled back on the sofa with a sigh, but then he had been there before, and at the owner’s invitation.

James was not entirely sure what his Inspector’s late wife’s late mother might have made of him. But then, he was often unsure what he made of himself. It was a long time since he had had a perfect conviction in what was right and what he ought to be doing, or have done.

Cradling his cup of tea in his hands, Lewis smiled at him. “Listen, Hathaway.” There was a pause – so often a pause between them, things that couldn’t quite be said in the words they had. “Thanks for coming today.”

“That’s alright sir, I wasn’t planning on doing anything else. I mean, I would have... I’m glad to help.”

He could feel a flush creeping up his neck and rose to close the curtains; it was getting dark outside, the streetlights had come on and a few more people were walking along the pavement, harried professionals going home to crash, a group of school children with their hair wet from swimming.

Lewis was laughing at himself again. “Dunno why I’m so maudlin, it just gets to you, I suppose. I think of my kids having to do this for me one day – stupid, isn’t it? Not going to help by worrying about it.”

“Sir, you suffer from an unfortunate combination of reflectiveness and practicality.”

“How about ‘Robbie’ for today, eh?”

“Robbie,” James repeated dutifully. Somehow he was sitting on the sofa again, watching Lewis’ eyes. The light was dim in the room now the curtains were closed, filtering in from the kitchen and hallway, and he wasn’t sure what he was seeing.

A young Robert Lewis had sat in this room once, with his girlfriend, meeting her parents. A young man setting himself up for a loss no one had seen coming. The nicest man in the world, and he was going to end up alone, relating to his kids through Skype and spending occasional off duty time with a man who called him ‘sir’.

“Were you friends with your Inspector, si- Robbie?”

Lewis chuckled. “Friends? Morse didn’t have ‘friends’, he had acquaintances, enemies and lovers. I don’t think he knew how to be close to people in a day-to-day way.”

He didn’t seem self-conscious about the statement, or uneasy about what it might be taken to imply, and James couldn’t quite fathom what that meant. He leant back, waiting for whatever came next.

“We weren’t on first name terms. Or at least, he called me Robbie sometimes.” Lewis grinned, laughing at some old joke James would never hear: “He wouldn’t have appreciated me using his, and not for reasons of formality either.”

The smile relaxed away, Lewis was staring off into his mind’s eye now, tea forgotten. He spoke slowly and precisely, as if the words were routinely thought.

“When Morse died he left me a third of his money. Of all his money and assets. The other two thirds were split between a charity and a woman he’d loved who left him to live abroad. We were all he had. I mean, I used to wonder sometimes why he didn’t just find some half-decent lady and get married, have someone to keep him company, look after him a bit – he drank too much, you know, and God knows what he cooked for himself. He had diabetes, towards the end, the tablet kind except it went to injections and would he keep a record of his sugar levels?”

Another wry laugh and distant smile.

“Far too much like toeing the line for him. He’d fake the record book for the clinic but they knew he was just pulling numbers out of the air. I tried to make him do the blood tests and that, but...”

There were tears in Lewis’ eyes, glinting in the half-light.

And then he was sitting up, scrubbing the back of his hand over his face, starting to say “Sorry, don’t mind me...”

Before he had time to realise he wanted to, James was holding him, an awkward twist across the sofa cushions, both arms round Lewis’ shoulders, not sure whether he was offering or seeking reassurance that here, now, neither of them was alone.

Lewis’ skin was warm through his shirt. James felt him raise his arms, answering the hug, leaning his weight into James slightly, solid and present.

The photographs stared at them, bright eyed children and wedding days. Robert Lewis and Val, smiling into the sun out of a silver frame on the television.

A shiver ran through him. James pulled back and then - yet more disturbed when their eyes came level - stood. “I should go. I should drive south, Robbie, I’ve got my seminar tomorrow. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

His voice sounded agonised and he was sure his face showed it, the appeal. Lewis stood up too, retrieving their mugs, face carefully composed.

“I suppose you should at that. Roads will be good and clear soon.”

“Exactly, end of commuting time.” They were face to face now as they stood, and James was struggling to breathe, aware of the pulse beating in his neck, all over his body, a warning drum to flee or fight this.

He grabbed the mugs from Lewis’ hands and strode away to the kitchen, wrenching on the tap over the sink then hissing in pain as the water came hot straight away over the mug and his hand.

From behind him, Lewis reached to turn it off and then ran the cold water over a wad of kitchen roll before taking James’ injured hand in his own to treat it.

He was looking at the angry red skin of the burn and James did too, feeling somewhere beside the pain the press of Lewis’ fingers through the kitchen roll, stroking slowly, his other hand holding the wrist gently in place.

James swallowed. His mouth was dry. “I’ve been thinking, you know.”

Lewis still didn’t look at him. “Yes?”

“I mean, I’ve just remembered. I don’t really have any food in my flat.”

“Well, that’s no good is it?” Lewis kept up his attention to the burn a little longer before letting James’ hand go. He was probably used to ministering to his children, James thought, and the thought hurt, twisted in his gut. “What did you get at Tesco?”

“Two Tikka Masalas and a fish and chips for one, mushy peas and all.”

Lewis granted a nod of approval. “Mushy peas? You’ll be a gourmet yet.”

James laughed, despite the way his heart raced in his chest. How hard to determine if sometimes when they spoke it was nothing, just this superficial banter, or if the same conversation was going on and on between them, taking different words and tones but persisting, daily, since they’d met.

As they prepared the food, retrieving two plates from the carefully packed boxes and sticking two plastic packages in the micro-wave, the casual atmosphere continued, Lewis making some comment about the rugby and James contesting it. Rapidly the kitchen began to smell of the long chain fatty acids, sodium dextrose, curry-style paste and anonymous protein chunks that claimed to once have borne anatomical relationship to a chicken that made up the kind of meal that can be stored for seven days but be ready in nine minutes.

They ate at the kitchen table in near silence, and soon James was scraping the last grains of rice from his plate and taking a final long gulp of orange juice.

Looking up, he saw Lewis sitting back in his chair opposite him, watching.

“Too late to drive now,” Lewis stated quietly.

James picked up his glass. His hand felt on the edge of trembling, and why? Why, when nothing had happened or ever would?

“Can you lend me a toothbrush?”

“Yeah, actually. She kept a stock of spares of just about everything, tons of stuff in the cupboards.” Sitting forwards, Lewis ran his hands over his face and yawned, tilting his head from side to side as if his neck hurt him. “’M’never going to get all this sorted out by Friday, I know I’m not.”

He was weary, and James was with him. There was a choice, an opportunity to regret what had been done. Or not been done.

James stood. “Come back to the sofa.”

Lewis looked up at him, the beginning of words evident, “James, I don’t...”

“Please, Robbie. I want to help.”

For a moment Lewis closed his eyes. Then, with a sigh, he stood up, following James back through the hallway.

“Sit down,” James instructed, “and angle away from me so I can get to your shoulders.”

Slowly, Lewis complied. His face was red, and the curry had not been particularly hot.

James brought his fingers down hard, massaging and kneading the tense muscles, pinching at the juncture of neck and shoulder and smoothing around the knobs of his spine.

Very low, Lewis groaned.

Warmth was building under his clothes; James pressed in again, circling through the knots, trying to push away the pain of some of the weight of all kinds Lewis had carried that day.

James was the one who had offered to come and assist him - after all, they already saw about as much of each other, if not more, than the average person did their of spouse, and that brought something with it, that familiarity. A need to help.

That irresistible urge to comfort.  And yet more than that; he was half-desperate to know what Lewis needed.

Fingers starting to ache with pressure, he realised he was moving closer to Lewis’ body as he worked, as if drawn by some external, inevitable force. An uncertain amount of time had passed.

There, in half-darkness, lips almost brushing Lewis’ neck, it seemed possible to speak.

“Don’t think for one minute I’ll let you be alone. Don’t think I’ll come and clear your house and say we were almost friends because I am not your friend, Robbie, I don’t want to be just your friend.”

He fell forwards, exhausted, and held on again, tightly. Lewis put a hand up to touch his arm but stayed still otherwise, breathing ragged as he spoke.

“Come and sleep next to me?” Lewis asked, so quietly James almost didn’t catch it.

The photographs were all still there, still watching. Both their pasts might press down on them.

But happiness, the ability to give and receive happiness, didn’t that carry its own morality? Didn’t that make sense of the unlikely, and give dignity to something as ridiculous as two grown men whispering and tentative, blushing in the darkness?

“I’d love to,” James whispered back into Lewis’ ear, maybe kissing it; he was tired, exhausted with emotion and nothing now was clear in his head except perhaps that he felt safe, completely safe with Lewis holding him.

At first they didn’t move, resting into each other, breathing, growing accustomed, or possibly afraid of breaking away into another moment, into their choices.

Then Lewis was standing, leading the way up stairs with the obligatory flight of ceramic ducks to a spare room he’d made up on arrival that morning. Everything smelt strongly of lily-of-the-valley, James noted in a daze.

A little while later, various ablutions mechanically completed, he made his way out of the bathroom and found Lewis in the bed, pyjamas on, sitting up. Visions of Morecombe and Wise and the sheer novelty of it all brought him up short, he felt awkward and absurd as he undressed, not sure if he should take all his clothes off.

 Climbing in, wearing only his boxers, he must have looked as worried as he felt.

“Sleep, James,” Lewis said softly, kindly. James could feel the promise of the evening slipping away like a tide, could feel the escape that was being offered, all that damn _niceness_.

He wriggled across, laying himself down flush with Lewis’ body, plastering himself all along the cotton pyjamas with the only skin contact where Lewis’ feet touched his calves.

Perhaps it was awkward, and very probably it was absurd, but he didn’t feel it now. His limbs were growing heavy, something deep and low pooling in his abdomen, the feel of Lewis’ torso against him, the smell of his skin, the movement of his ribs as his breathing sped up, the catch in the rhythm when one of them shifted slightly and suddenly James was almost straddling his leg, hot and hard – so hard, wanting so hard – against Lewis’ thigh.

Not possible to identify precisely when the kiss began, only that it was happening, warm and perfect. James had never understood before that this was what a kiss was; the closest you could be to another person, the nearest God would allow you to come to dissolving entirely into the person who made you sure that the world was designed in a beautiful and perfect way, with everything in its right time and its right place.

It wasn’t yet dawn when James woke again, Lewis’ arms around him and his head on Lewis’ chest, on the still-closed pyjamas.

He adjusted slightly so as not to be lying on a button, and smiled for a while, and at some point sleep rolled up again.

The second time he woke, he could hear a car in the road and the sound of a child singing. Carefully, he slipped out from under the duvet, padding across the carpet and down the stairs.

When he returned to the bedroom a few minutes later, he found Lewis awake, and saw the expression of relief on his face, which meant he had to go and kneel over him and kiss him again. Lewis’ hands went in his hair _– I like it longer, I like it longer like this_ – and when he pulled James down slightly to be sitting properly astride his lap, James felt an answering hardness to his own and hissed.

“I’ve just phoned the station,” he said, when he managed to concentrate long enough to pull away for a moment. “I’ve got some annual leave coming – it’s not like they need me for the diversity seminar anyway – and, yeah, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”

Lewis smiled at him.

It was the right time. It was right.

James leant in, hands already moving to open the pyjama top, heart already racing, and mourned nothing.

\- - -

 

 

 


End file.
